PEACE-PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS IN THE CONTEXT OF SANTI-MANTRA
Keywords:
Peace: The Common Goal, Peace-Prayer of Francis Assisi, Opposing Ideals and their Reconciliation in Prayer, Love, the Creative Impetus of the First Being, Human Dimensions of Forgiveness, Faith Versus Doubt, Faith as a Remedy for Doubt, Hope in the Life of Francis, Francis a Happy Man, Dissolution of Polarities, Preferential Poles of PeaceAbstract
Peace has been the object of search for men from time immemorial. Saints and sinners alike have pleaded and prayed for peace whenever they encountered violence, discord, discomfort, tensions and moments of helplessness. In all such situations, man in all his humility and sin- cerity, has addressed prayer to God for peace the source of peace. The aim of this article is to set out in clear terms the elements and condi- tions necessary to real and stable peace in a world fragmented by exter- nal and internal conflicts, the antithetics of such human experiences as love and hatred, injury and pardon, faith and doubt, hope and help- lessness etc. This polarity marks out strikingly the need for working out a reconciliation within one's own life as a precondition for achiev- ing peace in the world. In this sense peace-prayer has a meaning be- yond all religio-cultural boundaries, as can be seen from the present article.
References
Marion A. Mabig, Omnibus of the Sources (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1972), p. 68.
Cajetaa Esser, Antonianum 1970, p. 197.
Bernard Haring, Free and Faithful in Christ, Vol. III (London: St. Paul's Publications 1978), p. 301.
